Recent Report Sheds Light On Medical Malpractice Hype

I've been blogging here a lot lately about the debate over medical malpractice and the impact the cost of insuring doctors is having on the US healthcare system. An article by David Leonhardt in The New York Times yesterday sheds some light on an
issue that has inspired a lot of research by economists. After sifting through years of data, these researchers have come to some basic factual conclusions.

The direct costs of malpractice lawsuits — jury awards, settlements and the like — are such a minuscule part of health spending that they barely merit discussion, economists say..

The current system appears to treat actual malpractice too lightly. Trials may get a lot of attention, but they are the exception. Far more common are errors that never lead to any action.

After reviewing thousands of patient records, medical researchers have estimated that only 2 to 3 percent of cases of medical negligence lead to a malpractice claim. For every notorious error there are dozens more you never hear about.

This is another perfect example of how the lies from republican lawmakers, and their insurance company collaborators, just keep on comin'.

What Is the Real Reason for Skyrocketing Healthcare Costs in the USA?

The idea that exorbitant malpractice insurance premiums is responsible for runaway healthcare costs in the USA just doesn't ring true to me.

The way I see it, if it wasn't for existing laws, and trial lawyers who defend the rights of patients, the U.S. healthcare system as we know it today would fall into an even greater state of disrepair, at the expense of the lives and well-being of patients who depend on healthcare providers to do no harm.

Doctors who make preventable errors and cause immeasurable harm, even death, to their patients, deserve to pay dearly for their mistakes. Human beings make mistakes. But human error is not an excuse for conduct by some doctors that is not part of accepted medical care. Besides, according to recent data, 70% of doctors in New York State win malpractice cases brought against them. Part of the problem, according to the trial bar, are juries who have been preconditioned by messages from big insurance companies and doctor organizations to believe that lawyers and their clients are to blame for skyrocketing medical cost. In fact, only roughly 1% of medical care costs in this country is attributable to the existing tort compensation system.

If Americans hope to see their healthcare costs brought under control, and healthcare insurance available at an affordable price for anyone, it's critically important that people better understand the real reasons for out-of-control medical costs in the USA: Greed! On the part of doctors and insurance companies.

Congress Should Strengthen, Not Weaken, Laws that Protect Patients

The President and Congress need to think long and hard before entering into any serious discussions about medical malpractice tort reform. Another story today in The New York Daily News provides all the evidence any thinking person would need to read to convince government regulators that they need to toughen, not weaken, laws that protect the health and safety of patients.

A Brooklyn man was brought to Maimonides Medical Center with chest pains in July 2008 and endured what his family now calls a tragedy of errors that led to his death.

Jacob Goldbrenner was sent to the Brooklyn hospital's cardiac catheterization lab so doctors could treat his ailing heart.

But doctors and hospital workers couldn't find the key to the lab.

They couldn't locate an anesthesiologist.

And then one doctor couldn't even find the lab itself, according to a lawsuit filed last week in Brooklyn Supreme Court.

Minutes turned to hours as the 52-year-old clothing salesman's condition worsened.

"We all felt a sense of desperation and frustration," said Baruch Goldbrenner, 27, who watched his father's health deteriorate.

At one point, Baruch Goldbrenner was aghast as he followed a first-year resident who didn't know how to get to the lab where doctors check blood flow and heart defects and perform angioplasty or other procedures.

"He just couldn't find it," the son said. "He was just utterly lost."

Goldbrenner's heart wasn't getting oxygen and doctors needed to place a tube into his lungs.

Instead, the tube went into his stomach by mistake, according to the family's lawyer.

"From every point there were delays," the lawyer said. "There was so much damage that the only way he could survive was with a heart transplant."

Doctors told relatives Goldbrenner could get a heart at Westchester Medical Center, and he was put in an ambulance and given a police escort.

"It was like, 'Hey, he has a second chance,'" his son said.

But at Westchester, there was no heart and no hope.

"It was just like someone stabbing a knife right into our collective hearts," Baruch Goldbrenner said.

Less than two weeks later, Jacob Goldbrenner was dead.

What makes matters worse, a Maimonides spokeswoman actually defended the hospital's cardiac care unit as one of the nation's best.

Patterson Makes Right Call...Finally.

Governor Patterson seems to finally have done something right.

New York City hospitals lost a lobbying battle with nurses Wednesday when Gov. David Paterson signed into law a bill that will force them to disclose their nurse staffing ratios. The bill had been bitterly opposed by the state's hospital trade groups, which feared it would put the state one step closer to legislation that could mandate their ratio of nurses to patients.

He said New Yorkers have the right to the best health care in the world. "I will do everything in my power to make sure they have access to it,” Mr. Paterson said. “I am proud that New York state is leading the charge to insure our citizens, and I am pleased that we are holding hospitals accountable to provide our patients with qualified nursing care.”

For years now the New York City comptrollers office has complained that negligence and malpractice problems in city hospitals can be traced back directly to low nursing staff to patient ratios. Hopefully, this move by the Governor will help correct the problem and thus protect and save patients' lives.

More Horror Stories Surface in Adult Homes

According to The New York Times today, for nearly 40 years, "adult homes have been the subject of scandal, outrage and investigations."  Promises of reform, much like the state hospitals they were supposed to replace, never happened. By now, the largest adult homes have more mentally ill residents than psychiatric hospitals.

Mentally ill people who end up caught in the system are often not sent to an adult home for any reason other than to stash them somewhere, off the street.

On Tuesday Judge Nicholas G. Garaufis of the United States District Court in Brooklyn, in a 210-page opinion, ruled that New York State had been illegally discriminating against mentally ill people who were capable of leading largely independent lives by warehousing them in adult homes.

They “are placed in Adult Homes by ‘luck of the draw for the most part,’ rather than any clinical determination that it is an appropriate setting.” 

The sheer negligence on the part of State government should open the flood gates for abuse claims. It's a disgrace.  My only hope is that plaintiffs' attorneys have a field day with these scoundrels who would treat human beings in this way. 

Windfall for Whistleblowers

CNN reported today that fficials from the Justice Department and the Department of Health and Human Services said the world's largest drug company promoted four drugs for use on certain ailments or at dosages that were not approved by the Food and Drug Administration.  Pfizer will be forced to pay $2.3 billion for their transgressions.

One of those drugs was the anti-inflammatory medication Bextra.  "Pfizer promoted the sale of Bextra for several uses and dosages that the FDA specifically declined to approve due to safety concerns," the Justice Department said in a news release.

The settlement announcement said Pfizer also illegally promoted the anti-psychotic drug Geodon, the antibiotic Zyvox and the anti-epilepsy drug Lyrica.

The Justice Department said these same corporate giants who spend millions each year to lobby congress for tort reform, also provided kickbacks to health-care providers to encourage them to prescribe other drugs, including Lipitor, Viagra and Zoloft.

The Justice Department said the investigation and settlement would not have been possible without the assistance of whistle-blowers who worked at Pfizer. The settlement includes a provision for six of those whistle-blowers to split more than $100 million dollars.  

I would bet that today, in every pharmaceutical company boardroom, there are high level meetings going on on the subject of whistleblowing.  Look for more on this in the news in the days and weeks ahead.